


If I were a caveman

by marieincolour



Category: Supernatural
Genre: ADHD, Community: hoodie_time, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Health Issues, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-11
Updated: 2015-02-11
Packaged: 2018-03-11 21:10:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3332990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marieincolour/pseuds/marieincolour
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fill for <a href="hoodie-time.livejournal.com">Hoodie-time H/C comment fic & art meme</a>-prompt by anon:</p><p>"Dean gets, and accepts, a mental health diagnosis. (Depression or something else). </p><p>Talk about how this changes how he thinks about stuff, (it isn't all individualized angst anymore, some things can be labelled now as something other people experience, the internet has coping techniques to offer [though how helpful they are is in degrees]), and while it doesn't actually fix anything, it does mean something"</p><p>I didn't do all that, but I did something. That counts, right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	If I were a caveman

**Author's Note:**

> First off; thanks for reading, kudos and comments are (as always) beautiful. Disclaimer here, yadda yadda. Enjoy!
> 
> Second: I'm not going to discuss my opinions on whether ADHD exists or not. I know it does, you might not agree, let's agree to disagree. Take it somewhere else. :)

_John stood in front of him, slightly hunched over. Wearing a ratty, off-colour yellow bathrobe. Dean - maybe nine or ten - could still smell the volatile combination of coffee and cigarettes on his breath, see the yellowing in his teeth, the black curl of his hair and scraggly beard. It must've been morning, after breakfast, maybe. Maybe he'd teased Sam or broken something, been too loud and boisterous. “Pipe down, Dean!”_

 

_Maybe he'd made too much noise, or maybe Sam had riled him up again, and when Dad had had to get involved Dean got the blame – too loud, too old to argue with Sam, should know better by now. He could still remember the burn of furious, righteous anger bleeding through him like a drug. He remembered the following screaming matches, too. Himself, his voice shrill and young, “it's not fair!”_

 

“ _Boy, there's something wrong with your head!”_

 

_-_

 

“You know, Dean, some people say that people who have ADHD are just meant for different things. Like in a tribe? That you need action and adrenaline to work, but then maybe you're even better than the rest of us? Maybe you're just  _made_ for hunting, huh? Like a different personality type?”

Sam peeked over at him over the screen of his laptop, and Dean could hear him shuffling his long legs into a semblance of a comfortable position under the plastic table.

 

“Shut up, Sam.”

 

“Yeah, but you see what I'm saying, right? That it's kinda an advantage, if you look at it the right way?”

 

“- Sam...”

 

“Like you know you're a great hunter. Maybe this is why?”

 

“Sam! I don't really wanna...”

 

“Yeah, but Dean. C'mon, just  _think_ about it. Maybe it's kinda normal? Like we've all got our strengths and weaknesses, right?”

 

“Yeah, well.”

 

He thought about the mountain of credit card fraud paperwork in the trunk of the Impala, about that time he'd been so low he hadn't been able to get out of bed, and hadn't seen people in so long he'd felt foreign standing in front of them again. He thought about high school exams and lessons, and about legs that itched so badly and fingers that twitched and frayed the hems of his shirts, and feeling like the world was slow like molasses and his head stuck on a spinning top. About saying things he didn't want to say, his voice cutting over and into and  _through_ the things other people were saying, talking so much he felt sick of his own voice, even though he wanted to shut up.

 

“It's not a fucking superpower,” he managed to mumble, splaying his hand on the table and wriggling his fingers. Watched them. Picked at a cuticle. Thought about the letter buried way at the back of the Impala's glove compartment, behind prescriptions and recommendations for cognitive therapy.

 

_...Patient shows clear impulsive tendencies under standardised TOVA-testing. Co-morbid situational anxiety and learning disorders, clarified further under section 4 and 6. Patient has mentioned typical situational depressive episodes..._

 

“I'm not  _saying_ it's a superpower,” Sam bit out, sounding impatient and grumpy. He clacked away at the keyboard again. “I'm just saying, this article argues that if you were a stone-age man, you'd...”

“But I'm  _not,_ Sam. It's 2014, not year minus-bazillion-hundred AD.”

 

“First, that's not how time works, and second, I'm just finding it hard to believe, is all, that you have this... This  _thing._ You've always seemed fine to me.”

 

“Yeah, well.”  _You were too young to notice that your big brother couldn't shut up or sit still or that when he'd read to you at night you'd be reading and he'd be memorising for next time. You grew up with me, you think this is normal._

 

“Maybe you should get a second op...”

 

“I don't need a second opinion, Sam. The guy is right. The diagnosis is right, and it sucks, and you don't believe it, and I don't really care.” If he'd had hackles, they'd be way up.

 

“I just don't see why you'd wanna go on meds to fix something that doesn't need fixing!”

 

“I'm not... What do you mean  _doesn't need fixing?_ It's not up to you to decide what does or what doesn't need fixing.”

 

“Yeah, but we're all a little...”

 

“So help me god, Sam, if you tell me we're 'all a little ADHD sometimes' I will box your ears.”

 

Their hissed conversation didn't carry far enough for people on the nearby tables to hear, but Dean could feel their eyes burning into the back of his neck.

 

“It's just.. Are you sure this isn't some curse?”

 

“Yeah,” Dean sighed, staring hard at the plastic table top, flipping the small, laminated menu card between two fingers.

  
“How can you be...”

 

“Sure? Sam, c'mon, man. You've been annoyed with me for years for being a hyperactive little shit, singing along and talking too much and never staying still, and when it turns out I'm  _medically_ a hyperactive shit you don't believe me? And besides, when did we ever stay long enough in a place for anyone to do anything about it when we were kids, huh? They all just assumed it was situational stress or whatever.”

 

They fell silent for a moment, Sam still clicking through WebMD or whatever he was looking at.

  
“And besides. It'd be nice to finish a movie now and again, y'know?”

 

He kept his eyes down as Sam looked up. Felt his face going a little red.

 

“Yeah, okay.”

 

“Don't 'yeah, okay'-me.”

 

Pause.

 

“Yeah, okay.”

 

“Bitch.”

  
“Jerk.”


End file.
